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In Focus: Radu Jude
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Films
From 5 November 2021


Scarred Hearts (Inimi Cicatrizate), dir. Radu Jude, Romania / Germany 2016, Romanian with English subtitles

Widely recognized as one of the most influential filmmakers working today, Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude developed throughout the years a highly distinctive positioning within contemporary cinema. Blending sharp, unflinching criticism towards the darker side of his country’s past with mockery and irony, his body of work represents among the most politically acute as well as the most formally innovative ones in contemporary cinema.

Radu Jude’s work has been widely recognized across major international festival, winning awards at Karlovy Vary (I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians), Locarno Film Festival (Scarred Hearts), Sundance Film Festival and his most recent Golden Bear Award for Best Film at the Berlinale for his latest Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn. From his early works until today, Jude’s thought-provoking work, exploring the fragile and tensed space between past and present, fact and fiction, has been some of the most essential of the Romanian New Wave – a movement recognized in the mid-2000s and characterized by austere and realist approaches to social and political realities blended with brazen black humour.

Formally innovative, Jude’s work is essential in deconstructing the eventful recent past of Romania, marked by the 1989 Revolution that freed its people from an authoritative regime. Throughout his films, Radu Jude never fails to confront this past and its reminiscence in today’s society, while delivering masterclasses of storytelling.

Celebrating the release of his latest work Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021), In Focus: Radu Jude includes Radu Jude’s debut feature The Happiest Girl in the World (2009); Everybody in Our Family (2012), one of the most essential works produced as part of the Romanian New Wave; Scarred Hearts (2016), widely considered as his breakthrough work on the international sphere; his award-winning I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (2018), as well as a selection of short films picked by Radu Jude in person. 
 
Programme:



Friday 5 – Wednesday 10 November
Recently divorced Marius plans to take his young daughter away on a weekend holiday. When things do not go as planned, he strikes out at those around him, and what began as comic drama soon turns bitter as Marius' increasingly erratic behaviour and morbid self-pity send the film spinning headlong into much darker territory.




Sunday 7 – Thursday 11 November
Radu Jude curates this special programme of four short films, from early works to recent creations.



Saturday 13 – Sunday 14 November
A powerful Balkan Western that follows a father-and-son duo on a dark and disturbing odyssey through 19th century Europe.




Sunday 14 – Thursday 18 November
The debut feature by director Radu Jude is a perfectly paced and darkly funny satire on contemporary life.




Wednesday 17 – Sunday 21 November
Radu Jude’s unyielding feature is a highly poignant story of a writer who didn’t live long enough to fulfil his talent. 




Sunday 21 – Wednesday 24 November
Radu Jude’s exhilaratingly freewheeling opus interrogates official and half-remembered narratives of the 1941 Odessa Massacre. 




Friday 26 November – Thursday 2 December
Winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale, Radu Jude’s uncompromising satire is a relentless attack on prejudice and hypocrisy.